It’s Getting Hot In Here… Thoughtful Fridays

Here’s a rather mind-boggling quote for this week’s installment of Thoughtful Fridays:

“According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the American meat industry produced more than 1.4 billion tons of waste in 1997—five tons for every U.S. citizen and 130 times the volume of human waste. Michael Jacobson, the longtime executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, adds the fact that just one midsized feedlot churns out half a million pounds of manure each day. “The methane that cattle and their manure produce has a global warming effect equal to that of 33 million automobiles,” the Center reports in its book Six Arguments for a Greener Diet.”

For the environmentally well-versed, this is not a ground-breaking article by any means, but it’s a great read, and will arm you with all sorts of wonderful statistics to fire at the folks who claim to be “green” while feasting on dead animals.

I totally agree – whenever we can actually see some truth published about the meat industry in the United States it is a real reason to rejoice! So much is not discussed or covered…and too often some people take refuge in their ignorance. The more the word gets out there, the less people can pretend to “not know”.

While it’s definitely not groundbreaking news for us (as you say) that raising animals for human consumption is detrimental to the earth… I still appreciate when “mainstream” statements & articles like this come out because it forces people to actually think about the facts instead of writing it off as some fringe group’s agenda! And I can’t believe that the USDA of all things made that statement about carbon emissions!

I read that each livestock cow produces 130 lbs of waste a day, which becomes a MAJOR cause of pollution from farm runoff. Raising livestock is by far the most harmful-yet-avoidable activity on this planet. Whenever I discuss enviro-issues with friends or other people (some self-professed environmentalists) and the livestock issue comes up, I always hear “Yeah, but I loooove meat. I just can’t give it up.”
Boggles the mind…
Great article–thanks for posting it!